Brevet Major Ian McKay, Royal British Corps of Engineers British Observer James Mathews

Major McKay joined the Royal Bengal Engineers in 1839 and took part in the First Afghan War as the junior member of the Royal Bengal Engineer staff of the Army of the Indus. He served with honor at Kabool and at Jalallabad (both in Afghanistan) and was wounded in one of the many forays of the Afghan's against the Jalallabad defenses which he had done much to assist in building and re-building in the wake of the horrendous Jalallabad earthquake.

Major Mckay received his step to Second Lt. in working on the construction of a large aniicutt (dam) and canal project in Southern India. After five years he was advanced to First Lieutenant, and given a large section of the anicutt (dam) and canal project to oversee and build. On the completion of the anicutt / canal project in 1857, Major McKay was given a mapping task to survey a steep pass through the mountains from India to China. He was interrupted in this task by the Great Indian Mutiny, and was summarily summoned to Delhi there to take on the position of Chief Engineer for the British Field Force besieging the city. He suffered a serious wound and was invalided home to England after seeing the British take the city of Delhi.

He was called upon to aid in surveying engineering needs in the Crimea, and served there for a period of nine months. He received another wound under the most honorable of situations in the attempted rescue of a brother engineer officer. He was again invalided home to England, and mentioned in dispatches. He was made 2nd Captain and took his assigned engineering company to Australia to build bridges in the outback for railway right-of-ways. Upon his return to England, he was made first Captain and taught at the Engineering School at Chatham, England for nine months. He was then posted as Adjutant to the Commanding Engineer at Gibraltar, and shortly after that volunteered to visit the United States as an Engineer- Observer. He served for a year in that capacity and was called to England to receive his Brevet Majorcy and was sent back to America for an indeterminate period of time, by his new commander Field-Marshall Sir John Burgoyne. Commander of Fortifications in Great Britain. Major McKay now serves with the Army of the Potomac as a Foreign Military Observer.

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